A place for my thoughts and ideas, my creative outlet, a little piece of the web for me to call my own...yeah...right...
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| a bite of chocolat... ::home:: A place for my thoughts and ideas, my creative outlet, a little piece of the web for me to call my own...yeah...right... |
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Thursday, September 14, 2006 I was doing some thinking the other day about our online, digital culture and decided what better place to air my thoughts than that very same medium? Many internet resources are obvious in their purpose. Things like our Gmail, our Skype, and our AIM - tools of communication. Things like Google, WebMD - the searchable storing and sharing of knowledge and ideas for simple convenience and the progress of our intellectual pursuits. But what about personal webspace? Of course some independent webpages are put forth with the simple intent of contributing a little something to the giant communal knowledgebase of the web, and of course others are put forth as a business venture (or to improve a current business). We even have specific-interest forums and online dating services in a desperate (and I say that with empathy, not condescension) attempt to reach out and connect with others in our independent, individualist, isolationist society... But, beyond being an extension of this desire to connect, what is the purpose of weblogs? The short answer is simple entertainment - another toy to distract our ever-decreasing attention span. But why, then, doesn't it go the way of all fad toys? Why don't we forget about it like our Tamagotchis and our Furbies? The answer to this is that weblogs, in all their trite, self-aggrandizing glory, hold a much deeper significance than their surface value would imply. Let's back up for a minute and look at our society as a whole. Context: I'm currently living in New York City, one of our nation's most "developed" cities in the sense of both industrialization and "progressive" thought. Supposedly we're "better off" than most, and in some respects we are. Most of us don't have to worry about food and survival on a daily basis. There are no daily car-bombings, and we have all the glory of modern healthcare, public transportation, etc. etc. etc. On the surface, we represent a society that regards itself as a bastion of hope for the future and an example of all that is "good." But everyday we walk by one another without even batting an eye. Hard-pressed by the ticking of our watches and the knowledge that our jobs are waiting, jaded by insincere street corner product-pushing, frightened of being judged too quickly because we know we ourselves judge too quickly, we haven't got time for courtesy. I walk through the park and see benches upon benches of solitary people. I walk through cafes and see individuals sitting alone, hiding behind their pretentious literature, their shiny new MacBook Pros. Walking down the street, they hide behind their designer sunglasses, their oversized scarves, and iPod Nanos... Why do we own all of these things to begin with? Because we fear isolation, because we desire to “belong,” because we know deep down that we need each other to survive, and because every day we are bombarded with images in advertising that reach deeper into our psyche than we would like to believe we allow, advertising that tells us where to spend our hard-earned money so that we can fend off the impending doom of eternal loneliness that awaits us if we fail to keep up with the pack and wear something “so last season!” Every time we decide we need a consumer “good,” it is not an independent decision – it is millions upon millions of advertising dollars telling us we aren’t good enough without it, that we are lonely because we lack it. The self-propagating capitalist machine keeps us going to work because there is no such thing as enough, because we will always need something new. Furthermore, because we are always rushing off to work our long hours, we never stop to interact with the very same people we fear separation from, which results in greater feelings of loneliness and self-doubt that reinforce the advertisements that made us purchase our portable Chanel walls in the first place! We have replaced our personalities with representative objects and, furthermore, replaced connection and conversation with simple assumptions based upon those store-bought identities. (And oh how often we even fail to look upon one another long enough to make even the swiftest of judgments.) Like the philosophical idea that nothing exists until it is perceived, we do not exist until we are perceived. But because we are more than objects, that is not enough to give life to us. We do not exist until we are known to one another, until we interact. But everyday we walk by one another and hardly bat an eye. As we rush from Point A to Point B and fail to notice our brethren, as we stay locked up in our self-inflicted prisons of frightened, unfeeling autonomy, we condemn ourselves to a cold state of nonexistence, exacerbating our profoundly human loneliness. Even when we appear to have everything, the only true currency in this world is happiness, and if we don't have that, we have nothing. It is now rather well known that newborn children need nurturing human interaction and physical contact throughout their early stages of development in order to survive. Studies have been done on infant mortality rates in orphanages, and the percentage of early deaths is much higher for these isolated children than that of hospital-born children who go home with their (usually) attentive, loving families. Furthermore, it has been shown that infants kept in closed-wall cribs (who cannot even observe human interaction, let alone participate) also experience a higher mortality rate than infants kept in open-fenced cribs. Psychologists will tell you that the effects of isolation are not only detrimental todeveloping infants. Adults placed in solitary confinement in prisons tend to show signs of “losing their humanity.” When this practice was common, it was initially thought that prisoners were losing their sanity simply due to the torture of isolation, and though that may be part of it, sociologists suggest it may also be a result of degrading social skills due to the lack of stimuli, sort of like muscles atrophy without exercise, and our ability to speak a foreign language dissipates without constant use. Everyday that we stand in a crowded elevator and avoid eye-contact with those around us, we are subjecting ourselves to social isolation. We may not be physically alone, but we are emotionally closed-off and separated. We are refusing to recognize each other as fellow human beings, but instead as objects, as obstacles. If we define what makes us human as our consciousness and our compassion, then we are definitely losing our humanity - and we are doing it voluntarily! We have imbued each other with so much fear and sadness and self-doubt that psychotherapy sessions are as commonplace as dentist appointments (and for many, much more frequent). But, therapy sessions involve spending time, spending money, and withstanding human interaction and judgment in a vulnerable position – none of these things we particularly like. I think weblogs, for some, have become a self-help version of the psychotherapy session – much like a personal journal, but with the possibility of anonymous comments and input from strangers we never have to meet. Just the other day I heard about a popular YouTube personality turning out to be an elaborate fictional creation started as experimental subject matter for a future movie. Although there had always been some skepticism about the legitimacy of LonelyGilr15's video-blog because of its technical quality, it still came as a shock to many of the faithful viewers, upset that this person they had acknowledged and taken into their lives did not exist. I think what makes weblogs and MySpace and YouTube thrive is not their sheer simplicity or their entertainment value. Fueled by our impersonal, inhuman surroundings, our lacking intimate relationships, our immeasurable loneliness, and the fear of our impermanence in this infinite timescale, these digital creations are our rebellion - the manifestation of our basic human desire to exist. We scream amidst the silence: I blog therefore I am! posted by Shannon | 4:13 AM |
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